


Until the End

by Willow_bird



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (i don't know how many other ways i can say it), Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard Sings, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Neil Josten loves Andrew Minyard, POV Andrew Minyard, Songfic, Until the End by Quietdrive, andreil in love, band au, they're in love y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26314465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird
Summary: The band premieres a new song at the end of the last concert of their tour, which had been previously cut short when Neil was abducted by his father's people. No one is expecting it to be a duet, especially not one that Neil and Andrew share.---A Band!AU?
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 40
Kudos: 172





	Until the End

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the summary, I'm really bad at them >.>
> 
> Look, friends, darlings, muffins... I have been listening to this song on repeat for THREE DAYS and I could NOT for the LIFE of me figure out whether it was an Andrew song or a Neil song until I was like OH DUH OF COURSE some of the song is sung by ANDREW and some is sung by Neil and they are SO in LOVE with each other! 
> 
> Eh, point being, the sing itself has one guy singing it buuuuuuuut I went ahead and kinda made my own arrangement. SO. That. I highly recommend that you listen to the song while/before you read the fic ^.^ A - because it's a good song. B - because, well, you'll see. 
> 
> That being said!! I really hope you enjoy!!
> 
> Song: Until the End (Acoustic) -- by Quietdrive

Andrew looked out at the crowd, most of them nothing but hazy splotches of shadow against a darker sea -- the glare of the stage lights and the buzz of adrenaline in his blood blurring them all into one indefinable monster. They were still roaring from the climax of their last song, and it wasn’t just the fans that were high off that final suspension into triumphant resolution. Nicky was jumping around the stage, slamming his fist into the air and cheering along with the crowd; Aaron had hurled his sticks across the stage and was standing behind his drum set, actually _grinning_ ; Kevin was catching his breath, his eyes wide and his teeth bared in savage exaltation. 

And Neil… Neil was standing at the edge of the stage, his eyes closed and his head back. From where Andrew was standing behind his keyboard he could see the utter _peace_ on his face and it made him feel…

It made him _feel_.

The crowd was still screaming, still cheering, when Neil finally opened his eyes -- but instead of looking out over the ocean of adoring fans going fucknuts out of their _mind_ for him, he looked at... him. At Andrew. 

Blue eyes, ocean deep, bore into his. The expression on his face softened to something like surrender as he stared and Andrew felt exposed just from that line of sight. Like by that searching, loving gaze alone he was stripped bare for everyone to see his tender, hidden pieces. Even across the stage, even with the cacophony of the crowd battering against his eardrums, Andrew could read the question in the other man’s eyes. They had talked about this before the show and Andrew had already agreed, but of course Neil would want to double-check with him. The idiot was always doing stupid, careful things regarding Andrew whenever he wasn’t doing stupid, careless ones regarding himself. 

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Andrew nodded instead. He stepped away from the keyboard and motioned toward the wings, where Robin was. At her cue, she came out carrying Nicky’s violin, Renee with her own half a step behind her

As Nicky jogged over to them to see what was going on, having caught the motion while he was still bouncing around the stage, Neil turned to address the crowd. 

He lifted his hands, and like the maestro before an orchestra, they fell silent. 

“Wow. What a fuckin ride. This has been… it’s been amazing. You have no idea. Especially with us having to go on and cancel the epic finale of our tour because… well, I don’t really need to explain that do I?” He gave a dry laugh and the crowd responded sympathetically. There wasn’t a single person in the room who wouldn’t be aware of what had happened at the beginning of the summer, not when the lead singer of the band they were all here to see was bearing fresh, new scars. Not when his name had been all over the news and tabloids in the intervening month or so before they’d been able to get the tour back on track. 

“Anyway,” Neil continued after the barest pause, shaking his head. “Look, I’m not going to talk at you, but I do want to say that we have just _one_ more song for you tonight.”

The crowd cheered and Nicky reached them, taking the violin and meeting Andrew’s eyes, his own wide with surprise. “Wait, really? Neil is going to sing the new one?” he asked. “I thought it wasn’t ready?”

Andrew didn’t answer, just looked to Robin and nodded. She took his place behind the keyboard and Nicky frowned in further confusion.

“I’m not going to sing this one alone, though,” Neil was saying to the crowd, his hands slightly outstretched to encourage them to tone their shit down so he could finish explaining -- the announcement of another song having momentarily renewed their hair-trigger response to absolutely lose their shit. Neil smirked at the sounds of confusion, then bewildered excitement as people in the crowd seemed to pick up on Andrew moving toward the front of the stage, another microphone in his hand. 

“See, Andrew and I wrote this one together and… well, it kinda works best when we sing it together too. I can’t guarantee this is how we’re going to record it, when and if we ever get around to that but… this is how we wrote it and we wanted to share it with you. This is ‘Until the End’.”

The crowd cheered so loud that to Andrew it was nothing but white noise dialed up to one hundred. Neil wasn’t paying them attention anymore, though. He was looking at Andrew. Only at Andrew. 

They waited. 

Finally, as the crowd hushed, Andrew gave Robin the signal and her fingers sank into the keys, the first notes of the song dancing up and over the band, over the crowd, over all of them. It was when Nicky and Renee gently cried in above the gentle tap of the chords, their strings singing a sweet, pleading melody, that the gravity of the harmonies began to click. Andrew sighed and let the sound wrap around him, but instead of closing his eyes to bask in it, he turned his gaze to Neil and basked in him instead.

Music was something that Andrew had only ever allowed himself with conditions. If he could keep the eyes off himself, if he ignored the truth behind the words he wrote, if he let no one hear him sing -- he could have this.

They were simple enough bylaws to obey, until Neil came into his life. 

He’d looked different then. Lacking the fresh scars on his face and on his arms, with badly-dyed black hair and the blue of his eyes obscured behind brown contacts -- but that wasn’t really the biggest difference. The Neil he had first met had been guarded and suspicious. He’d been desperate and terrified with no clue what the fuck he was doing. He’d thrown himself into their world as a swan song, a last chance to selfishly grab at the one thing he’d always craved but had been denied at the high, high price of survival. 

Neil had chosen to live, not just survive, and Andrew had watched as he’d thawed. He hadn’t realized until that night, though, that Neil had been watching him thaw, too. 

Now, Neil’s eyes -- too blue to be _real_ \-- stayed locked on his, his lips curling into a soft, small, sad smile as he began to sing:

_”When I am gone I hope that you'll stay  
Keep me close in memory  
You can move on  
With your promise of new  
I'll be right here waiting for you…”_

When Neil had come back to him, in the dark room where they lay unable to sleep as the FBI debated their fate (well, Neil’s fate -- but only because the FBI was too stupid or too blind to realize that one was the other was both when it came to the two of them), Neil had told him how, with his father standing over him and his death so close he could taste it, his thoughts had been on them. On the studio, the friends he’d made, the family he’d forged… on _Andrew_. On their secrets and their promises and their truths and their kisses.

\--

_“I didn’t want to die,” Neil gritted out, his voice rough and cracked, breaking around the edges, shattered glass and heartache barely clinging to a life-raft made of love and relief. “I fought, but it wasn’t enough and I… I thought I would never see any of you again. So I just… I thought of you. I hoped you… you could be more. Find more. But selfishly… selfishly I wanted you to remember me.”_

_Andrew just… held onto him. He hadn’t stopped touching him unless absolutely necessary from the second he’d been in the same room again since being separated in the riot and all that came after, and he sure as fuck wasn’t letting go now. He held onto him and kissed his neck and growled out, “Could never forget an idiot like you. Do not forget **me** , though, Neil. Do not forget that I will always, **always** come for you.”_

\--

Now, Andrew lifted the microphone and kept his gaze on fathomless blue as he sang his answer. His voice was a little bit deeper than Neil’s, a little bit rougher. Neil sang with love and sadness, and Andrew responded with love and anger, a demand in every note:

_”Don't forget me  
**No** , my love, my love  
I won't forget you  
**No** , my love my love…”_

And he made a different promise. The promise not to move on. The promise, instead, to _always_ fucking come for him. He would follow, he would find him, even if he had to go to the end of the fucking world.

It was Andrew who began the chorus, now, and they treated it as a conversation -- or maybe an argument. 

First, Andrew, making his vow, his voice strong and determined, a promise and a demand all rolled into one:

_”To the end of the world, there and back  
Until the end of time  
No one can stop me if they tried…”_

Then, Neil, sighing over his last words, his expression as tight as the pleading in his smooth, moon-sweet tone, warning him of danger, begging him to be safe:

_”The darkest days, the darkest nights…”_

But Andrew wasn’t about to hear it. _No._ He bit back is response, shaking his head, his fingers curled around the base of the microphone like the hilt of a knife as he continued his pledge:

_“I won't stop until the day I die  
Until the end of the world, my love  
To the end of time…”_

The rest of the cavernous room had faded away at this point. There was no stage, no crowd, no band behind him. The music lifting their song and tying it together may as well have been wind through a canyon, whispers in an otherwise empty universe because all the world belonged to them and only them.

The only color in the whole world was the blue of Neil’s eyes.

The only sound was the hushed fire of Neil’s voice as he sang directly to him and only him, that sad smile still tugging on his lips.

\--

_They were laying in Andrew’s bed, not sleeping despite the fact it was both way too early and way too late for anything that remarkably resembled wakefulness. Moonlight filtered in through the slatted blinds over the window, a cool breeze chilling their bare shoulders._

_“Staring,” Andrew rumbled quietly, his voice partially muffled by the pillow wedged under his cheek. He was laying on his side facing Neil, who was on his back but with his own face aimed toward him._

_“Yeah,” Neil agreed, and the smile on his lips tugged at the bandages on his cheeks. “It’s just…”_

_“Just what?” Andrew tried to sound annoyed._

_“You’re so goddamn beautiful.”_

\--

Neil sang:

_“Eternity is so beautifully cold  
I wonder if angels ever feel old…”_

And Andrew admitted a truth he’d been burying for far too long:

_“I'm lost in your eyes  
I'm stranded at sea  
You know you're **everything** to me…”_

The bridge was the argument this time. It was their stories, happening concurrently, somehow still intertwined even when there had been so much distance, _too_ much distance between them. Neil, the subject of his father’s sick wrath, looking his death in the face and thinking he’d lost everything and Andrew, barrelling forward with no direction, refusing to let go of what had already been wrenched so violently from his ignorant grasp.

Neil pleading, not wanting to let go but fearing it was the end of everything:

_“Don't forget me--”_

And Andrew refuting him, his father, fate:

_“No, my love  
My love..!”_

_“I won't forget you--”_

_“No, my love..!  
My love!!”_

This time they sang the full chorus together. Their voices blended together in a harmony that Andrew felt in his _soul_. He had no other word for it, for the physical weight in his chest that resonated in time with their song. His heart was still pumping his blood, his lungs still holding his air, all the muscles between his hips and throat working exactly as they were supposed to in a dance of living and breathing and the music that resulted thereof -- but the _extra?_ That extra burning, humming and twisting as it pushed raw emotion into every single nerve and synapse?

What other word could he have for it but his very _soul?_ He hadn’t known it was even there until Neil came along -- perhaps because he had always held the missing piece of it.

_“To the end of the world, there and back  
Until the end of time  
No one can stop me if they tried  
The darkest days  
The darkest nights  
I won't stop until the day I die  
Until the end of the world  
My love  
To the end…”_

\--

_Another sleepless night, and Andrew wasn’t sure which one of them had woken first this time. He couldn’t remember his own nightmares to know if they had been old or new, but his heart was still thumping desperately enough against his ribcage that he didn’t need the aftertaste of fear on the back of his tongue to tell him it had been a bad one. Neil was already sitting up beside him, his back against the headboard and his arms wrapped around his legs, his head bowed against his knees._

_Andrew forced a few slow breaths and then sat up, reaching out to gently brush a hand over Neil’s hair. To reassure him, or himself, or maybe just to let him know he was there -- Andrew wasn’t sure exactly of the motive and he wasn’t interested in dissecting it either._

_Instead he just kept up the contact, gently carding his fingers through Neil’s sleep-tousled auburn mop until the tension finally started to fade from them both. Then, and only then, did Andrew curl his fingers and give a soft tug. Neil didn’t resist, and a moment later he had his idiot resting in his arms._

_“You shouldn’t have to put up with this,” Neil rasped out softly as Andrew continued to stroke his hair. “I’m too fucked up. I’m not even **real** Andrew. I’m twenty-two names and a bad attitude with a perpetual target on his back. You--”_

_“Stop,” Andrew growled, and Neil stopped. He gave him a moment to realize how stupid he was being and knew when it had happened by the softly huffed laugh that breathed against his throat._

_Neil nuzzled him and sighed, and Andrew grunted his appeasement. “Sorry,” Neil murmured after a moment. “I just… It’s like, fear is so ingrained in me that it’s like… it’s like the only way I know I’m alive. So even when there’s nothing else to fear, my brain comes up with things to be afraid of, even when I know they aren’t true -- just out of muscle memory, to keep me afraid because that was the only way I ever knew to be alive.”_

_Andrew pressed a soft kiss to his temple._

_“You do not have to be afraid,” he said. “And when your body forgets that, I will remind you.”_

_\--_

They were standing close and their eyes never left each other, but now Andrew reached out to Neil. He traced the back of his knuckles in the ghost of a touch over the slashes on his cheek, never breaking away from that glacier blue as he took over for the next verse, his voice lowering and the hush of the music around them quieting to cushion the softer, gentler tone.

_“Don't be afraid when everything fades to gray  
No, don't be afraid  
I need all your love  
I need all your pain…”_

Neil caught his hand, and he _smiled_. He stepped closer as he linked their fingers, that smile no longer sad but instead softened with love and faith and the confidence that no matter what happened next -- they would face it together. This time, when they traded the bridge back and forth, it was in understanding, it was in a shared and abided promise:

_“Don't forget me my love, my love…”_

_“I won't forget you, no, my love, my love..!”_

One more time they hit the chorus together, stepping back from each other only so that they could build the crescendo between them, their hands clasped and their eyes fierce. He could see a fire reflected in the blue infinity of Neil’s gaze, a fire that was familiar and comfortable in its determination and its rage.

Only now, at the end, did they finally turn their voices out and away, aiming their declaration to the world at large. 

Daring someone to challenge them. 

Daring someone to _try_ and rip them apart.

They _sang:_

_“To the end of the world, down and back  
Until the end of time  
No one could stop us if they tried!_

_The darkest days_  
_The darkest nights_  
_We won't stop until the day we die_

_Until the end of the world, my love  
Until the end of time…”_

Even when the music overtook them, their last words fading out to the cry of the violins, Andrew could feel the rush of the song flowing through him. He could feel it flowing through _Neil_ beside him, in the contact of their hands. He soared with it, let it take him, allowed the hum of his soul to fly on that current until the last note faded.

Only when the crowd started to cheer did Andrew remember they were there at all. 

He took in a sharp breath and looked to Neil only to find that the singer was already looking at him, his eyes wide and his lips parted in a soft pant, face flushed and _fuck_ Andrew wanted to kiss him he was so fucking _beautiful_. He didn’t -- but only because that… that was for him and Neil alone. They stood up here, they sang together, they bared their souls and held each other through it, and part of that was the music and the need to share it that drove them both to perform. But when Andrew held Neil, when Andrew kissed him, when he touched him and reminded him with hands and mouths and bodies that they would never be parted… 

That was just for them.

Neil’s soft cerulean eyes mirrored that understanding. He squeezed his hand and then let it go to step back and give his praises to the band as Andrew took his turn to address the crowd.

Seeing this was going to happen, the crowd immediately hushed -- it wasn’t often (read: ever) that Andrew addressed the crowd. 

“That was _Until the End_. I do not know if you will ever hear it again after tonight so consider yourselves pretty fucking lucky.” There was a rumble of laughter, like the crowd thought he’d made some kind of joke -- idly, he thought that true fans would probably know he wasn’t -- but he waved the sound off with a dismissive hand and it swiftly faded. He clicked his tongue piercing against his teeth and sighed. “I am only going to say this once, so listen.” 

He stared them down until the silence was so thick you could walk across it. 

“Thank you. Thank you for your support, but moreover for your understanding. We canceled a huge show and every single one of you here chose to receive a ticket on credit instead of a refund, not even knowing when that show might be. There have been a couple of fucking wackos, but for the most part our fans have been hugely supportive -- of Neil and of the band -- as we navigate through some pretty heavy shit. Neil didn’t get into it earlier and I am not going to get into it now. Partly because you all can probably guess, since I like to hope our fans aren’t fucking idiots -- and also partly because it is none of your fucking business, so…” he shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at the others. Neil was leaning against Nicky, the taller man’s arm around his shoulder, smiling at him with such blatant _approval_ and _affection_ that Andrew was legally _obligated_ to scowl back at him at this point.

Neil merely beamed right the fuck back at him. Brat.

With a sigh, Andrew looked back out at the crowd. “Look, it has been one hell of a night. In a good way, actually -- and I intend on ending the night on that note. We appreciate you. Now go the fuck home.” Then, without further comment, Andrew turned and strode off the stage. He could sense Neil turning to follow even as Nicky and the others bounced toward the front of the stage to shout their farewells to the crowd. 

Neither of them stopped moving until they had passed through the narrow access hallway and made it back to the dressing rooms. Neil flicked the lock behind them, and a second later Andrew had him backed against the door. 

“ _Andrew…_ ” Neil breathed out like an angel’s sigh and Andrew could feel each syllable humming in his fingertips. 

He wanted to kiss him, _fuck_ he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to do more than that. He suddenly hated that they were here -- that it would be a couple of hours still until they were able to make it back to their hotel room where he could take this beautiful man beneath him and coax out each sound and sigh and song he knew he had built up within him, even after a long performance. That would have to wait for later, but now… now he could kiss him at the very least. He could, and fuck did he want to, but instead…

Instead, Andrew took Neil’s face in his hands. He brushed his thumbs over scarred cheeks and waited until those blue eyes cleared enough that he knew his sweet, perfect, beautiful idiot was listening to him. 

“Andrew?” he asked, his voice still trembling with the need that always seemed to crop up whenever they were within proximity like this. Andrew didn’t bother to bite back a smirk at the sound. He even rewarded it with the slightest nip to Neil’s full lower lip, but held himself back from chasing the whimper it elicited. 

“Contain yourself, junkie, I have something to say.” His own voice was a rougher, huskier growl than he had really intended -- but that was Neil’s fault and he’d make sure he paid for it later.

“What is it?” Still breathy, but more alert. It would have to do. 

Andrew almost nipped at him again, but knew it would have just been a distraction, a procrastination. So instead he leaned back enough to be able to search those blue eyes and give both of them some fresher air to clear their heads. 

Then he said, his voice strong and sure for all that it was only just above a steady murmur:

“I love you.”

Neil’s eyes widened, then softened. They’d said the words before, if you counted working on the song. They’d written them. They’d sang them. They’d looked at each other and known that they were speaking _to_ each other -- but they hadn’t… _said it_. Neil had promised him that he would stop running, and so Andrew would too. No more running, for either of them. 

“Until the end of the world?” Neil murmured back, that soft smile and those soft eyes and that soft moon-sweet voice caressing him in the only embrace that would ever touch the buzzing weight in his chest. 

“Until the end of time, my love,” he promised, and his own breath caught at the end, the realization of his own sincerity locking in place. Unquestionable, impenetrable. 

“My love,” Neil echoed, and Andrew pulled him close. He breathed in his scent and he held him close, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. 

“My love.”


End file.
